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Author Robert Crais Rob Holden: Robert Crais, welcome to ReadersRoom.com. It is a pleasure to have you with us here today! Robert Crais: It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to be anywhere.... Rob Holden: I would like to start this chat off with your upcoming novel -- due out Feb 15 -- The Forgotten Man. Can you tell our readers a bit about it? Robert Crais: With all the logging I feel like I'm in a timber camp or the bridge Enterprise.... Natalie R. Collins: Call me Paul ... Bunyon that is. Robert Crais: The Forgotten Man is an Elvis Cole novel. It's about how our histories shape us, and how we can accept that course or change it.... Rob Holden: Can you tell us a bit of the plot? Robert Crais: A man without identification makes a deathbed statement that he's Elvis Cole's father. This man is a murder victim, and to make matters worse--Elvis has never met his father, so he can't know if the man was telling the truth or not. The story follows Elvis's search for the unknown man's identity. Natalie R. Collins: How long did it take you to write this book? Robert Crais: About a year, give or take. They always take about a year. Give or take. Rob Holden: Your previous novel -- currently out in paperback -- was The Last Detective. Could you tell our readers a bit about that? Robert Crais: The Last Detective is in many ways the precursor to The Forgotten Man. In that story, Lucy Chenier's son, Ben, is kidnapped, and we follow Elvis's relentless quest to recover the boy. This novel is the first of my books in which we learn about Elvis Cole's past--how he came to be the man he is. We learn that much of his own past is unknown to him, and how this absence has guided the course of his life. Now, in The Forgotten Man, we learn even more about Cole, and Elvis continues the quest for himself. The book is also about how Elvis--and we--define family.

Natalie R. Collins: Can you tell us more about how you came up with the character of Elvis, who is very unique, but a character that readers have really taken to.

Robert Crais: I've been a lifelong fan of American detective fiction -- from Chandler, Hammett, and Macdonald through Robert B. Parker and the current practitioners. I had tried my hand at creating a private eye character a few times, but never with a result I enjoyed--you know, they were all busted out guys who liked smoky jazz and couldn't sleep...sorta like a literary version of the old Johnny Staccato series. Thing was, I didn't have a personal stake in the character during those times. Then, back in '85, my father died, and I had to take over the care of my mom, so to speak, and this was a job I just didn't know if I could manage. So I transmogrified the situation into fiction, and it became The Monkey's Raincoat, wherein Elvis Cole helps a woman learn how to survive on her own after her husband is murdered. During the transmogrification, I put many of my own sensibilities into Elvis.

Natalie R. Collins: And by making it more personal, it appeals to readers.

Robert Crais: You think? Maybe so. I do think it's the human (and humane) side of Elvis that readers find appealing. That's what I read in their letters, and I get PLENTY of letters.

Rob Holden: The first two months of 2005 have been remarkably busy for you -- with the new novel coming out, the tour for it -- and with the release of Hostage -- with Bruce Willis. Since you started your career writing for television, did you have much input in the making of the movie -- which was slated to come out January 21?

Robert Crais: The movie of Hostage was supposed to be released on 21 January. Miramax has now delayed its release until 11 March... As for input, not so much. I wrote the original screenplay, but Bruce brought in a friend of his during production to make production changes, and they ended up changing quite a bit. Hopefully, it will all hang together in the final cut.

Rob Holden: Robert, you did spend years writing for TV series - including Hill Street Blues and Quincy. Did you find the change from TV to novels to be difficult?

Robert Crais: I had to teach myself how to write novels. A novel is its own beast--it isn't a long short story, and it's radically different in form and technique from the screenplay form, and it is a much heavier weight to lift. I wouldn't say the transition was difficult, but the learning curve was steep. I had a family to support and bills to pay, and I was turning my back on nine years of steady employment in TV, but writing books was my dream.

Rob Holden: When we did our chat a couple of months ago with Sidney Sheldon, who also started in television, he said that he was amazed by how less restricting the novel was than episodic TV. Did you find that to be the case?

Robert Crais: Oh, absolutely. Novels are freedom. If books are Disneyland, then the author is Walt Disney. You don't have to fit within a pre-existing format, and you don't have to take stupid notes from production executives, actors, and directors. But with that freedom comes a much more difficult canvas...a 600 page novel manuscript--and the demands of the novel form itself--are MUCH more demanding than a 120 page screenplay or 60 page teleplay.

Rob Holden: Robert, since we announced this chat we've received a number of questions from our readers. Will you answer a few of those for us now?

Robert Crais: You bet.

Natalie R. Collins: Marianne M., Philadephia, PA: LA Requiem ends with a pivotal thought: "People come here to make their dreams come true. That is why it is a powerful and edgy place." What made you realize that any place that could make your dreams come true, had such power? (Power vs. joy, heartache, etc.)

Robert Crais: To dream is to risk, and to give yourself over to risk is both empowering and humbling. Here in LA, legends of people arrive everyday to chase their dreams-- they've given up whatever safety and security they've had, and they are risking those things to make their dreams come true. LA is a Mecca for dream-chasers, and has enormous power because so many people give themselves over to the possibilities here. LA is a symbol, of course. No 'place' has the power; LA simply represents the power of all those individual dreams--the energy, the hope, the desperation.

Natalie R. Collins: Carol Q., Butte, MT: Demolition Angel (my favorite of your work) shares Carol Starkey with us. Her tough exterior, but sensitive heart, make her totally likeable. Are female characters such as Carol difficult to write?

Robert Crais: I don't find female characters like Carol difficult; I try to approach them respectfully and honestly. During my TV days, I spent a year writing Cagney & Lacey. This was a wonderful amazing year-long workshop in writing realistically and sensitively about women, taught by Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless. I learned an enormous amount.

Natalie R. Collins: Alvin P., Albuquerque, NM: Your writing for TV is well known and your track record great! If you could write for one established TV show today, what would it be and why?

Robert Crais: Have to be Lost or Desperate Housewives. Maybe Alias. I'm a big JJ Abrams fan, and a Teri Hatcher fan, too. With the Abrams shows, I love the nature of the unseen--the characters are always more than you first see. My last few books reflect a similar sensibility, I think. And I love the strange humor on DH.

Natalie R. Collins: Manny L., River Heights, IL: How many times have you had to justify killing off Samantha Dolan? (What a brave and artistic thing to do!)

Robert Crais: LOL -- couple 'a thousand! Man, I have gotten a TON of hate mail over that one, but even more mail from readers who understood. Killing Samantha was difficult for me--hey, I loved her!--but, artistically inevitable. What's the old Hemingway quote? "Every true story ends in death."

Rob Holden: And our final reader question ....

Natalie R. Collins: Jack P., Denver, CO: Elvis Cole is complex, his attitudes are colorful and add so much to your pages. How old would Elvis be?

Robert Crais: When I began the Elvis Cole novels, Elvis was older than me...now he's younger. He must be living in a time-warp. If you counted forward from his Vietnam service he'd have to be in his mid-fifties, but no, uh-uh, no way! I can't see Elvis that old, so his aging will continue to warp while mine, no doubt, will speed up.

Natalie R. Collins: Thank you for answering those, Robert. And now, I have a question for you.

Robert Crais: My pleasure. Great questions. Fire away.

Natalie R. Collins: Robert, you mention moving to Los Angeles, and the many people that come there, following their dreams. Your roots-and I'm assuming some family--are in Louisiana. Do you miss it, and do you go back often? And since I'm making a trip there soon, to speak at a writer's conference in Lafayette, I wonder what you would recommend as the most important thing to experience while in Louisiana.

Robert Crais: I miss it, but I go back often, and enjoy it every time I'm there. Louisiana is like no other state or place in the nation. I was recently a guest at the Louisiana Book Festival, and had a great time seeing old friends and family. When in Louisiana, you MUST experience the food. It's outstanding. In Lafayette, try Mulatte's.

Natalie R. Collins: Thanks for the recommendation!

Robert Crais: Don't bother with the alligator. It tastes like chicken.

Rob Holden: Robert, one thing we always ask the authors who are kind enough to join us about is their writing habits and schedules. Do you work on a set page or word count? A certain number of hours per day?

Robert Crais: I shoot for six pages a day, but hours are more important than pages. My work schedule is rigid. I'm here every day, and I work to concentrate on whatever project I'm writing. I tend to spend more hours per day later in the project when I'm sweating the deadline. I also stay aware that writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint.

Rob Holden: Before we wrap this up, I know that you will be touring extensively in support of The Forgotten Man. Is there someplace where our readers can find out where you will be, and when you will be there?

Robert Crais: Visit my website, www.robertcrais.com, and click on 'personal appearances' for the full tour schedule. Also, join the mailing list. Mailing list members are getting advance excerpts from The Forgotten Man that aren't available anywhere else, and also get to see goofy pictures of me on the film set of Hostage.

Rob Holden: Finally Robert, is there anything you would like to say to your fans who might read this chat at ReadersRoom.com?

Robert Crais: Books are a special form of communication, vitally different from film and television. The book isn't the end result; it isn't the final form of the story. The book is only a device, a machine that allows a writer and reader to collaborate. That's why books are wonderful. I write a book, you read it, and--only then--the final art occurs in YOUR head as a collaboration between us. So books are my way of touching my readers. Thanks for being touched.

Rob Holden: Robert Crais, thank you for joining us here today -- and all the best with The Forgotten Man, and all your future projects!

Robert Crais: Thank you.




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